He shook his head, laughing. “Please don’t misunderstand. I am irrevocably bonded myself, and incapable of sexual interest in anyone but my mate.”
“Oh.” She looked quite relieved.
He took a step closer. “What I mean is simply that I appreciate your company on an intellectual level. Living in exile is . . . lonely. I rarely have the opportunity to spend time with a female of intelligence and dignity.” Navaar may have possessed a certain cunning and strategic insight Garos could respect, but he found no dignity in the way she and her sisters carried on.
Retifel studied him. “I am more genuinely flattered now. Here I had the feeling that you disapproved of the Families.”
He replied with care. “I must live my life among alien cultures, dealing with those whose customs and practices differ from my own. I accept this. Which is why I appreciate admirable traits in my allies where I can find them.”
She chuckled. “A smooth and practiced answer. You wear your masks well. I only hope the deceits you have prepared for Starfleet are as deft.”
He respected Retifel enough to respond honestly on that point, at least. “I have learned from my past mistakes. Starfleet officers are skilled at penetrating deceptions, it is true. So the key is to employ enough deceptions to keep them busy—until it is too late for them to stop us.”
U.S.S. Pioneer, orbiting Rigel VI
According to the information Director Tenott and his staff had provided, the Ryneh Shipyard was one of the most disreputable shipbuilding and repair facilities in the Rigel Colonies, a place where smugglers, raiders, and pirates could get repairs with no questions asked or sell off stolen ships for parts. As such, Malcolm Reed had not expected it to look so impressive. The Coridanite-built facility occupied the cored-out center of one of Rigel VI’s smallest asteroidal moons, a wide cylindrical shaft running clear through the potato-shaped moonlet’s long axis from end to end. The near mouth, and presumably the far one as well, was ringed with shield generators, tractor emitters, and slips for small tugs and repair pods. Through the opening, Reed could see hundreds of docking berths arrayed all around the inner cylinder’s walls. The suspect ship that had come here from Rigel V had been tracked this far and had not left. Naturally there was no chance that Grev, Kirk, and the stolen archives were still aboard, if they ever had been in the first place; the ship had stopped at Colony Two en route and had plenty of opportunity to transfer them to a different ship. But at least a forensic scan of the ship’s interior and its database would reveal if they had been aboard and, if so, where they had disembarked.
However, getting past the entryway force field was proving difficult. The shipyard’s operator—unexpectedly, a human colonist, a brown-complexioned man named Kuldip—had been putting forth whatever bureaucratic obstructions he could come up with to refuse them entry. But Pioneer had come prepared. En route, they had stopped at Colony One, the largest of the Neptune-class giant’s three terrestrial moons, to pick up Teixh Veurk, an official for the Colonial Port Authority. “We have the full power of the Trade Commission and the Port Authority behind this order,” the stocky Coridanite woman told Kuldip, her stern expression enhancing the natural frown created by the subtly inhuman bone structure between her eyebrows. “If you do not cooperate, I will have to review your operating license pending a full inspection of your facility.”
As Veurk harangued him, Reed could see it sinking in for Kuldip that this was not the typical situation where the authorities would look the other way. For her part, Veurk seemed to relish the opportunity to take some real enforcement action for a change, and Kuldip evidently had good reason to fear her wrath. “Of course, of course,” he finally conceded with a stammer. “I, I simply did not understand the situation. Certainly, you are cleared to enter.”
Suddenly Veurk became gracious and put on a wide, saccharine smile. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
Pioneer was a larger ship than this facility normally handled, but Ensign Tallarico had no trouble navigating the Intrepid-class vessel through the asteroid’s entrance or the scaffolding and robotic arms that filled much of the interior. Regina Tallarico was a more experienced pilot than her rank would suggest. After her first ship, Discovery, had been shot out from under her at Berengaria VII in the first year of the Earth-Romulan War, she had been honorably discharged due to her injuries, and upon her recovery had enlisted as a pilot in the Alpha Centauri merchant marine. After the Federation had been founded, Tallarico had rejoined Starfleet with her old rank reinstated and with years of civilian experience under her belt.